1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to child protection products.
2. Background Information
Each and every year, numerous children are injured through accidental interaction with electrical cords and sockets. One source of danger for children (and pets, for that matter) relates to chewing of electrical cords. With but a little persistence, a child or pet can chew through the insulation on a household electrical cord in surprisingly little time. Of course, direct contact between a wet mouth and electricity will almost surely have catastrophic consequences.
Few, if any, practical measures for protecting children (and pets) from the dangers of electrical cords as described above are available. Clearly, electrical cords could be made to be virtually impenetrable, but to do so would raise costs of all appliances and extension cords, in order to protect only a relatively small portion of the consuming population. However laudable and justifiable such a measure would be, manufacturers would surely resist any requirement of this nature, based on economic grounds. Furthermore, any new such measure would not address the millions of existing, unprotected cords.
Consumers might somehow add layers of protection, such as by further wrapping cords with, for example, duct tape. However, measures such as these are of questionable efficacy, are unattractive, and are difficult to reverse once the need passes (as the child or pet grows beyond the chewing stage).
It would well-serve society as a whole to provide a vital protection to its young children (and secondarily, of course, to its pets) in relation to chewing of electrical cords. Ideally, such a protective measure would, in addition to providing effective protection, involve articles that could be added to existing, standard electrical cords, and which could be removed once no longer needed.